


A Reforged Profound Bond

by Purrplegal98



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, i will take a hammer and fix the canon, mostly canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28922277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purrplegal98/pseuds/Purrplegal98
Summary: Dean deserves to choose Castiel and Castiel deserves to burn his handprint back onto Dean's shoulder, I think.Post 15x19 and a loose soulmate AU- where anyone can be your soulmate if you work on it, but Dean and Cas aren't really soulmates.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester/Other(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	A Reforged Profound Bond

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [carved my love through blood and pain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20501657) by [lovetincture](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture). 
  * Inspired by [carved my love through blood and pain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20501657) by [lovetincture](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture). 



“Are you sure you want this, Dean?” Castiel asked, his hand glowing with divine grace. “The handprint faded last time because I did not intend to claim your soul. It will be permanent this time, and it will painfully shatter your bond to any prior or potential soulmate.” He looks the same as ever, but deeply excited by what he is offering. 

Dean looks up at him from the fugly chair he’s sitting on in yet another of the endless parades of shitty hotel rooms that comprise his life. Its an unremarkable place for him to make a life-altering decision, but given that the Literal Biblical Apocalypse had taken place in a cemetery in Kansas over a decade ago and him, Sam and Jack had stripped God Himself of His power by Just Some Lake, it was as good a place as any. It had taken nearly a year, and a lot of effort to coax Jack into pulling Cas (and many of the other souls out of the Empty), and then as per their usual pattern, Dean had been snippy and evasive towards Cas for about a week. After Dean had gotten the sulking out of his system, he’d gone to find Cas and planted one on him.

“Yeah, Cas.” Dean said, looking up at the man he was finally able to admit was the love of his life, “I’m ready. It took me losing you, what, six times? But I’m ready.” Dean took a deep breath in to brace himself, and then Cas lowered his hand and touched his skin. Dean screamed, grabbing the armrests of the hideous chair, and then he passed out.

_He saw Cassie, his first love. He’d hoped for a while they could be soulmates, and it seemed they had the potential because he saw her sit up in bed with what appeared to be a husband (good for her) and scream briefly before her husband awoke to comfort her. She grabbed her left shoulder, where Dean’s mark had been before Hell. Dean regretted causing her pain, again, but was vaguely pleased to see her happy and well. So few of those he encountered could say the same._

_His sight darkened again and he saw Lisa Braeden, sitting up late watching Jeopardy on TV. Lisa vaguely rubbed her shoulder, but Dean guessed that when Castiel had wiped her memory all those years ago any potential soulmate bond between them had gone, leaving only the faintest of threads Castiel now snipped with scissors._

_Dean’s sight next shifted to Michael-as-Adam, the brother he had never known, and the Archangel whose Sword he still was. Not the Michael who had possessed him, but the one who could have ten long years ago. Michael looked up at where Dean would be and nodded firmly. Dean guessed this soulbond was well and truly relinquished by both sides, and he nodded back._

_Benny, restored to life for a third time, grabs the bar he’s working behind, and the spot on his arm where Dean had carried his soul. “I knew that angel had his eyes on you, brother,” he says. “I hope you treat him right.” Dean can’t tell if Benny can actually see him, but before he can decide, his vision fades out again._

_The flashes to potential his bondmates began to go by faster and faster- Anna Milton, restored to her family as a human and barely noticing her shoulder glow faintly as she talks to her aged parents over a late dinner. Tessa the Reaper in a memory he’d forgotten- 26 and sitting on a bed as she tells him he should let go. A flashback to Hell, and to Alistair carving out his potential soulmark on the rack and remaking Dean as a torturer, although Dean could sense that Alistair was truly dead. Amara herself, who winked at Dean, now part of-but also not-Jack. Arthur Ketch, Gordon Walker, and all the other hunters he had bonded over the feeling of hunting not being enough, of it being all they cared for, and who he’d taken up the offer of “some after job fun” given with a heavy wink. A parade of girls he’d all but forgotten-damn he’d had game before Hell. Dean didn't realize how many potential soulmates he’d seen and met, but seeing them like this, he realizes that Cas, his Cas, had always been more important to him than anyone else._

Dean opens his eyes and gasps. He's back in the fugly chair in the hideous hotel room in Bumfuck Nowhere, USA. The pain faded, Castiel quickly removing his hand. Dean shakes his head to clear it and looks at his shoulder. There it was again, the perfect match to the handprint he’d first seen in a shitty gas station Pontiac after his resurrection. Clear evidence of the “profound bond” he had spent years denying.

Dean tore his eyes away and looked up at Cas, who was looking down at him hungrily, like Dean was all he'd ever wanted. Cas reverently and possessively laid his hand back on Dean’s shoulder and kissed him. When they broke for air, Castiel laid his forehead on Dean’s and said softly “I knew you could be mine from the moment I began rebuilding your soul, but now that you are, it’s glorious. You’re glorious, Dean.”

Dean’d never admit it to anyone, because it totally would ruin his macho image, but at those words, spoken in total earnest, Dean blushes a bright pink that matches the hideous carpet in the shitty motel room. “I guess we coulda been doing this for years, huh, Cas?” he replies lamely, before kissing him again enthusiastically.

“We have forever, Dean.” Castiel says gravely when Dean pulls back.

“That sounds like a marriage proposal, buddy,” Dean jokes. It’s reflexive, built of forty-plus years of deliberate repression and a desire to avoid emotional intimacy, but he thinks about it for another second and he wants it. He’s had a shitty life, and he just let Cas brand him and he love him. He, Dean Winchester, officially loves this angel more than he loves anyone else in the world. “Actually, Cas, I take it back, please marry me.”

“By severing your potential soulbounds and rescarring your arm, I have tied us together far more intimately than any possible piece of paper for ‘tax benefits’ could have-” and Castiel still does the finger quotes here. It's remarkable how little and how much he has changed. Dean realizes he is still taking and tunes back in. "-But I wish to be yours in whatever way you desire, Dean. So, if you insist, I will marry you. Perhaps when we get back to the Bunker.”

“Sounds good.” Dean replies, and kisses Castiel again. Slowly this time. If Cas is right, they’ve got his mortal life and eternal afterlife- why rush?

**Author's Note:**

> Hola, Mishamigoes!
> 
> It's turns out its been almost eight years since I wrote fanfic, but I started rewatching Supernatural, my beloved dumb monster-fighting soap opera, after the Epic Highs (November 5) and Lows (the final two episodes) of the conclusion. 
> 
> This fic is also a bit of a spite-write for all those "Dean and Castiel are soulmates" fics. They are clearly not, and their repeated choice of each other over Heaven and Hell and Purgatory and the Empty and God is all the more compelling because of it. And Dean deserved to get to chose Cas, and Cas deserved to strut around like a peacock with the angelic version of his name tattooed on Dean's skin. After this, I picture them getting married opening a hunter bar in the busted up electrical plant above the Bunker and being doting but distant uncles to Sam & Eileen's kids, who are being raised a few states over and mostly out of the life.
> 
> The Hannibal fic I loosely copied this off of is great BTW.


End file.
